Library of Privileges

The borrowing + lending of power.

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice” - Brian Stevenson

Last week, with the help of all of you wonderful people, we raised over $6,000 in a GoFundMe (GFM) for Johnnie. She was one of the people I wrote about in The Meth Lunches. You can read the story of her eviction from her apartment here. After 12 years of steady payment in one apartment, she fell behind one month and was evicted. This was mostly do to Kroger, her employer, not giving her enough hours to work. A common practice in the grocery indsutry to save money at the expense of actual humans.

That GFM launched one week ago, and raised what it needed in 24 hours. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I will not take advantage of this relationship with all of you by springing fundraisers on you LOL - I swear. But this one felt important. Thank you for making that easy for me.

Johnnie had very little hope for the GFM from the start. She found the whole idea embarrassing. She felt it was asking for a hand out. She was sure no one would give. She didn’t want people she worked with to know she wasn’t okay. She always took care of herself and she imagined she always would. Leaning on people, after years of childhood abuse and abandonment, is not easy for her. She resisted that dependence and vulnerability. She worried about feeling judged. She braced herself for criticism. But I talked her through the steps, and her close friends agreed this would give her more options. They convinced her.

Friday morning, with over $4,000 already collected, I texted Johnnie a link to the page and told her to check it out. She was gobsmacked. Ecstatic. Blown the fuck away. The idea that so many strangers heard her story and gave their own money to help her at her lowest hour was beyond anything she expected.

That feeling alone is worth everything, isn’t it? To know you aren’t alone. That someone or a bunch of someones out there in the vastness has your back?

This week I learned yet again that the balance of money in, money out is not poverty. It could be a “broke” thing. But what distinguishes poverty is its bottomlessness. It’s unfairness. It’s lack of justice.

Johnnie texted me this weekend that she was out looking for her new place and she was told her eviction had already shown up on her credit report. This was a blow - I had read it could take a couple months to appear, so this blew a hole in the plan for a quick turnaround to try to game the system’s loop holes.

Even though she has $6,000+ ready for her to use for multiple months rent, the cash does not solve the problem - and THAT IS POVERTY. In fact it’s the perfect example of poverty because now, here are Johnnie’s choices:

1. Weekly: She can live in a weekly apartment where they take people with evictions. (More expensive + an unstable living environment)

2. Second chance: She can find one of those elusive second chance apartments, only to find out that they charge thousands of extra dollars for moving in, so much so that they will eat her GFM cash just on the move in.

3. Private: She can get lucky and find a private owner (A crapshoot. Someone who has enough privilreges themselves to extend them to her - this is a tough one and requires extreme luck in this rental market.)

4. Seal eviction: She can probably have the eviction sealed because she was an on-time paying renter for over a decade, but this takes time (six-ish months?) organizational skills, the where-with-all, the energy, a focused brain and the executive functioning to find the right people to get the job done. And doing this while managing being unhoused is extremely challenging, if not impossible.

What it really all boils down to is: luck (the poor have little of that) and who Johnnie knows (social capital - thats us!) because if she has friends with resources, she might be able to use their privileges to get her into a situation that is solid. And this is happening in our community. Word is out and people are sending ideas, contacts, and professionals in hopes that we can help her find a solution.

But of course this all reminds me of the people who don’t have this kind of social capital and how they manage without the traction to get themselves out of a bad situation. This traction is where much of the poverty injustice happens because people get stuck, overwhelmed, things fall apart. Myabe they never get back to where they were.

But there are ways to combat this on the ground.

In a recent study in Nature, researchers looked at lower class and middle-upper class folks who lived the same neighborhood. These socio-economic diverse communities make for something researchers called “economic connectedness.” They found that poor people, particularly children, benefitted substantially from these relationships. So much so that it could be life changing.

One example from the NY Times, whch covered the study, was about a lower class teen, named Mari, who had made friends with upperclass girls at her school. Those cross-economic relationships opened doors for Mari. When her friends took an SAT prep class, she did too. When she applied for colleges, Mari ran her applications past other parents with college experience. Mari is now a lawyer and credits access to higher socio-economic privileges as part of the reason.

This is important. It means that there is verifiable, measureable proof of three things, according to the study:

1. Lower class people do better in socio-economically diverse neighborhoods. Just being around richer people rubs off.

2. Communties are better and are more upwardly mobile collectively when there is socio-economic diversity. Those connections raise everyone.

3. Poorer people who have richer friends do better, make more money, have better jobs, etc. People listen, pick up, learn, dream, prepare, strive for things that they wouldn’t normally even consider when they are around people who have more privileges, freedoms and benefits.

My point: It matters when we use our privileges as people in the middle and upper classes. Not just to give money or work with a non-profit. But also in how we live everyday. We can let people borrow from our coffers when we have it to give. We can make a phone call for someone. Provide a contact. Make an introduction. Provide a connection. We can sometimes let people borrow from our sets of privileges like we are libraries. And when we do, people are better off for it. It creates a little bit more equity in a system that has little. It can not raise everyone out of injustice, but we can beat it back for some of the people we encounter. And this matters. It makes a difference.

And this isn’t some weird thing - we do it all the time in the middle and upper classes! I just had lunch with someone who is making connections and introductions for me! We all thrive on this kind of capital. A kind of intentional community-minded nepotism.

So, thank you for going into your coffers and doing this fundraising for Johnnie with cash (from across the country) and active on-the-ground (local) assitance. She is in a much better position with all of it than without it. I have the money in my checking account and will transfer to Johnnie when she is ready to bank it. (Her request) I will keep you all updated on our progress.

What Johnnie had hoped is that this week we could’ve filmed a fun video of her smiling and thanking you all for your generous support (she mentioned she wanted to do that), something light-hearted, a happy ending for your efforts - she wanted to give you that. And she wanted that exhale for herself, too.

That is still the goal.

But poverty is not just or fair. It complicates. But we are not afraid of complexity and getting our hands dirty, are we? We will work it through to the end. And do it together, which is almost always better than doing it alone.

Thank you, as always, for reading and for getting into the fray and making people’s lives better. It matters. xo Kim